Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 8 - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Incapable of Noticing ~Katou Mana’s POV~

After spending some time in our room, Kath reluctantly left. Lily saw her off to the entrance, then came back.

“What’s up, Katou? Thinking of something?” she asked.

Only when she called me did I realize I’d been deep in thought. Why was this? Something Kath said was niggling at me. Something was off with my own train of thought, but I couldn’t tell what.

One hadn’t been a human who could turn into a dragon. He’d become an actual dragon.

One wasn’t a human who could turn into a beast. He became an actual beast.

Two visitors who could transform into something both lost their humanity. Maybe this was an inevitability for those with that inherent ability.

Anybody could have reached this same conclusion, so it was a perfectly reasonable concept. Yet this sense of unease remained. I just couldn’t get rid of it. It was like I had a fish bone stuck deep in my throat, like I hadn’t arrived at the conclusion I was meant to reach. Had I not given it enough thought? No. I’d given it plenty of thought. So if I hadn’t reached the proper conclusion, it meant my mind was unconsciously avoiding—

“Katou?”

“Oh.”

I came back to my senses when Lily called my name again. She looked at me with concern. It seemed I’d zoned out again.

“It’s nothing,” I said with an ambiguous smile.

This sense of unease was so vague that I had no idea how to explain it. It could just be that I was overthinking things. Or maybe it was a simple misunderstanding. If so, I felt bad for making Lily worry about me.

“Sorry, Lily,” I said, adjusting my smile. “I was just zoning out a bit.”

“Really? All right,” Lily said, walking across the room and sitting on a bed. “But if something’s bothering you, then feel free to tell me about it. You’re the type to try and carry everything on your own, after all.”

Lily remained relaxed as she opened a book on her lap.

“I mean, even if I can’t help you reach a conclusion, I can worry about it with you,” she added. “Just that should help you feel better, right?”

“Thank you...” I managed to smile more naturally now. “But I’m really okay. I was just absorbed in some useless thoughts.”

“Hmm... If you say so.”

Lily seemed convinced now, and her eyes began running over the pages of her book. I ended up staring at her as she read. Our exchange felt slightly familiar. The way she read also overlapped with another memory. Just maybe...actually, I’d started to feel this for a while now.

For example, Lily had started out reading only every now and then. Some time after, out of the blue, she’d suddenly started learning to read with zeal. And then, during the conversation with Kath earlier this morning, she’d interjected miscellaneous knowledge out of nowhere as if she’d suddenly remembered it.

Her casual conduct tickled my memories of a girl who was supposed to be no longer in reach. I didn’t know the truth, of course. Maybe it was just my imagination. I had no choice but to wait for the day when she would tell me the truth.

Coming to that conclusion, I tore my gaze away from her, then spotted Lobivia sitting on the floor.

“What are you up to, Lobivia?” I asked.

She was searching through a bag of luggage between her legs.

“Hey, Mana? Where’s the telescope again?”

It seemed she couldn’t find what she was looking for. We had an unexpectedly large amount of luggage, so this was pretty common. There were a number of people in our group, and a journey required many necessities to begin with. To top it off, Rose had made heaps of things. In truth, we had enough that it would normally be a huge pain to carry them around, but we managed by using magic bags.

Not only could a magic bag carry lots of items thanks to its expanded interior space, but it would preserve food and even reduce the weight of anything inside. The only downside was its extravagant price. Because of that, merchants didn’t use magic bags, instead opting to move about in manamobiles that carried all their goods.

We had Rose with us, though. It took her a fair amount of time to make a magic bag, but we could have multiple bags when it was normally difficult to acquire even one. Furthermore, we could put one inside the other, which was immensely convenient for storing things.

Lately, because we had treated them as disposable, we’d found out that Rose could skip a few steps and make them much faster. With that, we could split our foodstuff into several days’ worth of portions and still carry it with us.

However, with bags within bags like this, it inevitably made it harder to find things. Lobivia had looked to me for help because I mostly knew where all of our stuff was. I was always by Rose’s side, so I had many opportunities to touch her work.

“Umm, the telescope Rose made should be in this bag here.”

“Oh! Thanks, Mana!”

I picked it out for her, and Lobivia took the telescope gratefully.

“Why are you looking for this, anyway?” I asked as I watched her act all delighted.

“I was thinking of bringing it when we go hunting tomorrow. It’ll be convenient, don’tcha think?”

So it was for tomorrow’s hunting trip. That was why she was strangely happy. It turned out Lobivia was really looking forward to it. That was wonderful, but she would have to reconsider using the telescope.

“If you’re hunting in the forest outside the settlement, then the mist will hamper visibility. You won’t be able to use it.”

“Oh...”

Telescopes were useful, but the forest here was a poor environment for one.

“I see...” Lobivia muttered dejectedly.

“Still, maybe you can show it off to Kath?” I suggested. “You might surprise her. It seems there aren’t that many people who’ve used a telescope in this world. If I recall, Shiran said that she’s never used one herself.”

“Oh? Shiran said that?” Rose asked curiously.

Since it involved something she’d made, Rose would have remembered Shiran mentioning it. Seeing that she and I spent so much time together, she found it strange that she didn’t know this while I did.

“Ummm, oh, right,” I said, recalling when this had happened. “I think it was when we were on our way to Aker, just before entering the Kitrus Mountains. Do you remember when Kei got shocked by the little incident in one of the villages we passed by? That night, Lily and the others were looking at the telescope, right?”

“Aah... Yes, that did happen,” Rose said, nodding.

“I was studying magic with Senpai and Shiran then. That was when Shiran said it. You were with the others at the time, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was. That makes sense.”

Now that Rose was convinced, I turned back to Lobivia.

“Kath has lived a pretty long time, so I can’t say for sure...but she’s been cooped up in this settlement. It’s pretty unlikely that she’s used one before. It’s not a necessity for normal life, so it’s possible she doesn’t even know they exist. How about showing it off to her?”

“You’ve got a point... If she doesn’t, then she’s in for a shock, huh?” Lobivia said with a nod, then turned to Rose. “Everything you make is, like, super amazing, Rose. Mhm. I’m sure she’ll be shocked.”

Rose smiled gently. The distance between her and Lobivia had shortened quite a bit with our visit to the settlement.

“So long as you know how it’s structured, it isn’t all that difficult to make,” Rose said. “If you have a lens and learn how it’s made, you should be able to build one yourself, even if the quality isn’t quite the same.”

“Really?!”

Lobivia went wide-eyed. Despite being so crabby, her expressions were really honest at times like these. Just watching her soothed the heart.

Hearing me giggle, Lobivia turned my way.

“Mrgh? Whaddya laughing at?”

“Oh, sorry. I wasn’t making fun of you or anything.”

I’d found her reaction adorable, but I’d given her the wrong impression. I decided to explain to her.

“I was just laughing because, like you, I don’t know how to make a telescope. Majima-senpai also said something similar.”

I suddenly remembered the conversation I had with Majima-senpai that night.

“So it’s possible to make a telescope from scratch, huh?”

“It doesn’t appear to have much magnification, though.”

The discussion had been frivolous, but the memory warmed my heart. I was well aware that my lips were naturally widening into a smile...

Maybe because we were passing our time in such a warm atmosphere, Lily’s next words rang with dissonance.

“Our master said that?” Lily asked. “What did he say, exactly?”

She looked extremely dubious, as if I’d said something very strange.

“Ummm...” Even though I wondered what was wrong, there was nothing to really hide, so I answered honestly. “‘So it’s possible to make telescopes from scratch,’ or something like—”

Lily stood up. A thud resounded through the room. The book she’d been reading had fallen to the floor, its pages still open. Lily, however, paid it no mind and walked over to me, grabbing my shoulders.

“Really? Did he really say that?”

She looked deadly serious. It wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to call her expression bloodcurdling.

“Y-Yes. Wh-What about it...?”

“What’s the matter, sister?” Rose asked in a reprimanding tone, finding Lily’s behavior strange.

Lobivia also looked confused. Lily didn’t seem to notice any of this as she lowered her gaze to the floor.

“That can’t be...”

The mutter spilling from her lips was like a drop of ink on a white sheet. Another color stained the warm atmosphere in the room. I probably wasn’t the only one who felt a sudden chill run down their spine.

“Mana, don’t you find it weird?” Lily asked.

“F-Find what weird? Huh? Wait a sec. ‘Mana’?”

“I mean, during the stargazing event at school... Oh, right. Fukatsu said you didn’t...”

She kept muttering. The way her thoughts ran while she talked was familiar to me. After a while, I met Lily’s eyes. No. Was this really Lily? That slight suspicion I’d been harboring suddenly turned to conviction.

“Mizushima...senpai...?”

“Listen to me, Mana.”

She didn’t deny my claim, not because I’d figured out the truth, but because now wasn’t the time for that.

“Right after we enrolled in high school, there was a stargazing event for first years at the end of April. Do you remember that?”

Instead of the girl I never thought I would see again greeting me, she threw me a rather odd question.

“Y-Yes. I didn’t go, though...”

“I know. Fukatsu told me.”

“Fukatsu did?”

I didn’t know why she brought up Thaddeus’s travel companion, but Mizushima-senpai—or in this case, Lily—had heard from him that I hadn’t gone to the stargazing event.

“Mana, you didn’t go to that event, so you couldn’t know this,” Mizushima-senpai continued, still grasping my shoulders. “You see, when I was a first year, I participated in the event. There were about thirty other students there. For example, that famous Todoroki who got the name Beast of Darkness was there. I first met Iino when her best friend Todoroki introduced us.”

“Is...that so...?”

“Mm-hmm. And...Majima and Kaneki also participated.”

I couldn’t figure out what she was getting at. At the very least, I knew nothing about all the things that Mizushima-senpai said. Still, I couldn’t see why she’d bring up an event that happened a year and a half ago. Was this also because there was something I still didn’t know?

“Listen to me, Mana,” Mizushima-senpai said, peering into my eyes. She then continued in an ice-cold voice. “We built handmade telescopes during the event.”

For an instant, time stopped. That was of course a hallucination. Reality didn’t stop. It couldn’t stop for us.

“We even went out to buy magnifying glasses. The event happened right after we entered high school. This leaves a big enough impression as it is, and it hasn’t even been two years. Despite this, Majima said, ‘So it’s possible to make a telescope from scratch.’ No matter how you look at it, isn’t that strange?”

Mizushima-senpai slowly backed away from me. I was the only one left behind in the flow of time. I remained utterly frozen as my brain recalled something. Back when I talked to Iino by the riverbed, she’d looked at Rose’s telescope and said it was nostalgic. That was because her best friend Todoroki had forced a handmade telescope on her. Then they had gone stargazing together. Todoroki had definitely made that during the school event.

“Wh-Why...?” I barely managed to squeeze out the words. “Like you said, Mizushima-senpai, it’s definitely weird. But back then, Majima-senpai really didn’t seem to know. Th-That’s as if...”

The remaining words got stuck in my throat. My thoughts didn’t stop, however. Earlier, I’d unconsciously avoided thinking about something. Now I finally knew why.

The man who’d found being a dragon more comfortable had lost his human sensibilities. The boy who’d turned into the Mad Beast no longer had anything resembling human intelligence. Even though they’d gone down different paths, both of them had lost their humanity.

I’d believed this was a peculiarity to those who had an inherent ability to transform themselves. But what about Majima-senpai? Shiran had once suggested that his soul was gradually becoming inhuman. Transforming one’s body and soul were two different things, but Majima-senpai was no different from them in that his cheat transformed him.

The truth was that Majima-senpai couldn’t remember something he would normally never forget. In other words, he hadn’t simply forgotten.

I had to know for sure... I had to know what was happening to him, even if I had to learn of a cruel reality.

Thus, we all headed over to see him.